Family Magazine: Or Monthly Abstract of General Knowledge, Volume 1

“But even this limited degree of amiability, which in an animal of less formidable powers would be considered as indicating no peculiar mildness of temper, is modified by the calls of hunger, by the feelings of revenge, which he frequently cherishes for a considerable length of time, and by various other circumstances, which render it dangerous to approach him unguardedly, even in his tamest and most domesticated state, without previously ascertaining his immediate state of mind. On such occasions, no keeper possessed of common prudence would be rash enough to venture on confronting him: he knows too well that it is no boy's

play to

seek the Lion in his den, And fright him there, and make him tremble there;

for in this state of irritation, from whatever cause it may have arisen, he gives free scope to his natural ferocity, unrestrained by that control to which at other times he submits with meek and unresisting patience.” “It appears, however, to be a well-authenticated fact, that neither the Lion nor the tiger can bear the steady gaze of the human eye, but are completely cowed by it. A writer in the South African Journal says: “The Bechuano chief, old Peyshow, (now in Cape Town.) conversing with me a few days ago, said that the Lion very seldom attacks man if unprovoked; but will frequently approach within a few paces, and survey him steadily; and sometimes he will attempt to get behind him, as is he could not stand his look, but was yet desirous of springing upon him unawares. If a person in such circumstances attempts either to fight or fly, he incurs the most imminent peril, but if he have sufficient presence of mind cooly to confront him, without appearance of either terror or aggression, the animal will, in almost every instance, after a little space, retire. The overmastering effect of the human eye upon the Lion has been frequently mentioned, though much doubted by travellers; but, from my own inquiries among the Lion hunters, I am persectly satisfied of the fact; and an anecdote related to me a few days ago, by Major Macintosh, proves that this facinating effect is not restricted to the Lion. An officer in India, well known to my informant, having chanced to ramble into a jungle, suddenly encountered a royal tiger. The rencontre appeared equally unexpected on both sides, and both parties made a dead halt, earnestly gazing on each other. The gentleman had no fire arms, and was aware that a sword would be no effective defence in a struggle for life with such an antagonist : But he had heard that even the Bengal tiger might be sometimes checked by looking him firmly in the sace. He did so ; in a few minutes, the tiger, which appeared prepared to make his final spring, grew disturbed—slunk aside—and attempted to creep round upon him behind. The officer turned constantly upon the tiger, which still continued to shrink from his glance; but darting into the thicket, and again issuing forth at a different quarter, it persevered for above half an hour in this attempt to catch him by surprise; till at last it fairly yielded the contest, and left the gentlemen to pursue his pleasure walk. The direction he now took, as may be easily believed, was straight to the tents, at double quick time.”

Before we close, we will give a brief description of the two classes of Lions; the Asiatic and the African.

THE ASIATIC OR BENGAL LION.

“THE uniformity of his colour is one characteristic, which distinguishes the Lion from his congeners of the feline race. Except in his young state, when there is an appearance of stripes, he is of a pale tawny above, which becomes somewhat lighter beneath. A second mark is, the long and flowing mane of the full grown male, which, commencing nearly at the root of his nose,

extends backwards over his shoulders, and gracefully undulates on each side of his face and neck. A third is, a long and blackish tuft of hairs which terminates his tail. In size, the Asiatic Lion rarely equals the Southern African. He is of a more uniform and pale yellow, and has a peculiar appendage in the long hairs which begin beneath the neck, and occupy the whole of the middle line of the body below. “The Lioness has no mane, is of smaller size than the Lion, more slenderly and delicately made, and more graceful and agile in her movements. The head of the Lion is almost uniformly elevated; that of the Lioness is almost uniformly carried on a level with the line of her back, which gives her a sullen and downcast look.

THE AFRICAN OR CAPE LION.

“Of the Cape Lion, there are two varieties, which, from the tint of their coats, and particularly of their manes, are designated by the settlers as the Pale and the Black Lion. The latter of these is the larger and more ferocious of the two, and occasionally is found of the enormous length of eight feet from the tip of the nose to the origin of the tail. The tail is usually about half the length of the body. The pale variety is the more common.

“The colonists at the Cape bear the Lion a deadly hatred for the mischief which he does to them, particularly in the destruction of their horses, for the flesh of which he seems to have an especial liking. Being ex

cellent marksmen, they will almost attack him singly;

but the more common mode of attacking him is by hunting parties.

“The African Lion, however, is often doomed to an ignoble death. He is dull of hearing, difficult to be awaked, and when suddenly awaked, has no presence of mind. Of these circumstances the Bushmen of Africa avail themselves to accomplish his destruction. “The wols and the tiger” (says Dr. Philip) “generally retire to the caverns and the ravines of the mountains, but the Lion is most usually found in the open plain, and in the neighbourhood of the flocks of Antelopes, which invariably seek the open country, and which manifest a kind of instinctive aversion to places in which their powerful adversary may spring upon them suddenly and unexpectedly. It has been remarked of the Lion, by the Bushmen, that he generally kills and devours his prey in the morning at sunrise, or sunset. On this account, when they intend to kill Lions, they generally notice where the spring-bucks are grazing at the rising of the sun; and by observing, at the same time, if they appear frightened and run off, the conclude they have been attacked by the Lion. Marking accurately the spot where the alarm took place, about eleven o'clock in the day, when the sun is powerful, and the enemy they seek is supposed to be fast asleep, they carefully examine the ground, and finding him in a state of unguarded security, they lodge a poisoned arrow in his breast. The moment the Lion is thus struck, he springs from his lair, and bounds off as helpless as the stricken deer. The work is done; the arrow of death has pierced his heart, without even breaking the slumbers of the Lioness which may have been lying beside him; and the Bushman knows where, in the course of a few hours, or even in less time, he will find him dead, or in the agonies of death.”

NATURAL. History is no work for one that loves his chair or his bed. Speculation may be pursued on a soft couch, but Nature must be observed in the open air. I have collected materials with indefatigabie pertinacity. I have gathered glow-worms in the evening, and snails in the morning ; , I have seen the daisy close and open; I have heard the owl shriek at midnight, and hunted insects in the heat of noon. Johnson.

The cut on the preceding page is another of the illustrations taken from the work on the ruins of the ancient American city. It is No. 3 of the cuts in that work. The ingenuity of the reader is now called on to decypher its meaning; which one has the means of doing

as well as another. We shall give more of these cuts

ere we leave the subject, some of which are among the most singular and grotesque figures conceivable, and would extort a smile from gravity's very self. They fairly eclipse the Fantasticals.

PERSIAN AND INDIAN MYSTERIES.

THE above representation of initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries, will give the readersome saint idea of the Persian and Indian mysteries, of which the former were probably the copy.

Nothing can be conceived more solemn than the rites of initiation into the greater mysteries, as described by Apuleius and Dion Chrysostome, who had both gone through the awful ceremony; nothing more tremendous and appalling than the scenery exhibited before the eyes of the terrified aspirant. After entering the grand vestibule of the mystic shrine, he was led by the hierophant, amidst surrounding darkness and incumbent horrors, through all the extended ailes, winding avenues, and gloomy adyta. The Metempsychosis was one of the leading principia taught in those temples, and this first stage was intended to represent the toilsome wanderings of the benighted soul through the mazes of vice and error before initiation; or in the words of an ancient writer quoted by Warburton from Stobaeus:

“It was a rude and fearsul march through night and darkness.” Presently the ground began to rock beneath his feet, the whole temple, trembled, and strange and dreadful voices were heard through the midnight silence. To these succeeded other louder and more terrific noises, resembling thunder; while quick and vivid flashes of lightning darted through the cavern, displaying to his view many ghastly sights and hideous spectres, emblematical of the various vices, diseases, infirmities, and calamities incident to that state of terrestrial bondage from which his struggling soul was now going to emerge, as well as of the horrors and penal torments of the guilty in a future state. ... At this period, all the pageants of vulgar idolatry, all the train of gods, supernal and infernal, passed in awsul succession before him, and a hymn, called the Theology of Idols, recounting the genealogy and functions of each, was sung : afterwards the whose fabulous detail was solemnly recounted by the mysiagogue; a divine hymn in honour of rotr RNAL AND IM

Mr. Elwes had inherited from his father some property in houses in London, particularly about the Haymarket. To this he began to add by engagements for building, which he increased from year to year, to a very great extent He was the founder of a great part of Marybone; Portman Place, Portman Square, and many of the adjacent streets rose out of his pocket: and had not the fatal American War put a stop to his rage for building, much of the property he then possessed would have been laid out in bricks and mortar. He judiciously became his own insurer, and stood to all his losses by conflagrations. He soon became a philosopher upon fire ; and, on a publichouse which belonged to him being consumed, he said with great composure, “Well, there is no great harm done : the tenant never paid me, and I should not have got rid of him so quickly in any other way.”

It was the custom of Mr. Elwes, whenever he came to town, to occupy any of his premises which might then chance to be vacant. In this manner he travelled from street to street, and whenever any person wished to take the house in which he was, the owner was instantly ready to move into any other. A couple of beds, the same number of chairs, a table, and an old woman, comprized all his furniture, and he moved them about at a minute's warning. Of all these moveables, the old woman was the only one that gave him any trouble; for she was afflicted with a lameness that made it difficult to get her about quite so fast as he chose ; and besides, the colds she took were amazing ; for sometimes she was in a small house in the Haymarket, o another in a great house in Portland Place; sometimes in a little room with a coal fire, at other times with a few chips which the carpenters had left, in rooms of the most splendid, but frigid dimensions, and with a little oiled paper in the windows for glass. It might with truth be said of the old woman, that she was “here to-day and gone to-morrow ;” and the scene which terminated her life is not the least singular of the anecdotes recorded of Mr. Elwes.

He had come to town, and as usual had taken up his abode in one of his empty houses. Colonel Timms, who wished much to see him, accidentally learned that his uncle was in London; but how to find him was the difficulty. In vain he enquired at his banker's and at other places; some days elapsed, and he at length learned from a person whom he met by chance in the street, that Mr. Elwes had been seen going into an uninhabited house in Great Marlborough Street. This was some clue to the colonel, who immediately posted to the spot. As the best mode of gaining intelligence, he applied to a chairman, but he could obtain no information of a gentleman called Mr. Elwes. Colonel Timms then described his person, but no gentleman had been seen. A pot-boy, however, recollected that he had seen a poor old man opening the door of the stable, and locking it after him, and from description it agreed with the person of Mr. Elwes; the colonel proceeded to the house, and knocked very loudly at the door, out could obtain no answer, though some of the neighbours

said they had seen such a man. He now sent for a pe son to open the stable door, which being done, they ente : ed the house together. In the lower part, all was sh. and silent; but on ascending the stair-case, they heard the moans of a person seemingly in distress. They went to the chamber, and there, on an old pallet bed, they found Mr. Elwes apparently in the agonies of death. For some time he seemed quite insensible; but on some cordials being administered by a neighbouring apothecary who was sent for, he recovered sufficiently to say, that he believed he had been ill two or three days; “that an old woman who was in the house, for some reason or other, had not been near him ; that she had herself been ill; but he supposed that she had got well and gone away.” The poor old woman, the partner of all his journies, was, however, found lifeless on a rug upon the floor, in one of the garrets, and had to all appearance been dead about two days. Thus died the servant, and thus, had it not been for his providental discovery, would have perished her master, Mr. Elwes, who, though worth at least half a million sterling, was near expiring in his own house of absolute want. Mr. Elwes had resided thirteen years in Suffolk, when on the dissolution of parliament, a contest appeared likely to take place for Berkshire; but, to preserve the peace of the county, he was nominated by Lord Craven. Mr. Elwes consented, but on the express stipulation, that he was to be brought in for nothing. All he did was to dine at the ordinary at Abingdon, so that he actually obtained a seat in parliament for the moderate sum of eighteen pence. At this time he was nearly sixty years old, but was in possession of all his activity. He now left Suffolk, and again went to his seat at Marcham. He took his foxhounds with him, but finding that his time was likely to be much employed, he resolved to part with them, and they were soon afterwards given away to some farmers in the neighbourhood. He was chosen for Berkshire in three successive parliaments, and sat as a member of the House of Commons about twelve years. It is to his honour, that in every part of his parliamentary conduct, and in every vote he gave, he sought no other guide than his conscience, and proved himself to be an independent country gentleman. In his attendance on his senatorial duties, Mr. Elwes was extremely punctual; he always staid out the whole debate, and, let the weather be what it might, he used to walk from the House of Commons to the Mount coffeehouse. In one of these pedestrian returns, a circumstance occurred which furnished him a whimsical opportunity of o his regard of his person. The night was very dark, and hurrying along, he ran with such violence against the pole of a sedan chair, that he cut both his legs very deeply. He as usual never thought of having any medical assistance, but Colonel Timms, at whose house he then was, insisted on some one being called in. He at length submitted, and an apothecary was sent for, who immediately began to expatiate on the ill consequences of

breaking the shin, the good fortune of his being sent for,
and the peculiarly bad appearance of Mr. Elwes' wound. “Very probably,” replied Mr. Elwes; “but, Mr. , I have one thing to say to you. In my opinion, my legs are not much hurt; now you think they are ; so I will make this agreement. I will take one leg and you shall take the other: you,shall do what you please with your's, I will do nothing to mine; and I will wager your bill that

's.” He exultingly beat the

my leg gets well before your's. apothecary by a fortnight. Mr. Elwes, when he conceived that he had obtained a seat in parliament for nothing, had not taken into account the inside of the house ; for he often declared that three contested elections could not have cost him more than he lost by loans to his brother representatives, which were never repaid. quitting parliament; for such was the opinion his constituents entertained of his integrity, that a very small expense would have restored him to his seat. He therefore voluntarily retired from a parliamentary life. About this time he lost his famous servant of all work. He died as he was following his master on a hard trotting horse into Berkshire, and he died empty and poor; for his yearly wages were not above five pounds, and he had fasted the whole day on which he expired. The life of this extraordinary domestic certaintly verified this saying, which Mr. Elwes often used : “If you keep one servant your work is done; if you keep two it is half done; but if you keep three you may do it yourself.” Among the sums which Mr. Elwes injudiciously vested in the hands of others, some solitary instances of generosity are upon record. When his son was in the guards, he was in the habit of dining frequently at the officer's table. The politeness of his manners rendered him generally agreeable, and in time he became acquainted with every officer in the corps. Among these was Captain Tempest, whose good humour was almost proverbial. A vacancy happening in a majority, it fell to this gentleman wo purchase, but as money cannot be always raised immediately on landed property, it was imagined that he would have been obliged to suffer some other officer to purchase over his head. Mr. Elwes one day hearing of the circumstance, sent him the money the next morning, without asking any security. He had seen Captain Tempest and liked his manners; and he never once spoke to him afterwards concerning the payment; but on the death of that officer, which soon followed, the money was replaced. At the close of the spring of 1785, he again wished to see his seat at Stoke, which he had not visited for some years; but the journey was now a serious object. The famous old servant was dead 3 out of his whole stud, he had remaining only a couple of worn-out brood mares; and he himself no longer possessed such vigor of body as to ride sixty or seventy miles, with two boiled eggs. At length, to his no small satisfaction, he was carried into the country, as he had been into parliament, free of expense, by a gentleman who was certaintly not quite so rich as himself. On his arrival, he found fault with the expensive furniture of the rooms, which would have fallen in but for his son John Elwes, Esq. who had resided there. If a window was broken, there was to be no repair but that of a little brown paper, or piecing in a bit of broken glass; and to save fire, he would walk about the remains of an old green house, or sit with a servant in the kitchen. During the harvest, he would amuse himself by going into the fields, to glean the corn on the grounds of his own tenants; and they used to leave a little more than common to please the old gentleman, who was as eager after it as any pauper in the parish. When the season was still further advanced, his morning employment was to pick up any stray chips, bones, or other things, to carry to the fire in his pocket; aud he was one day surprised by a neighbouring gentleman in the act of pulling down, with some difficulty, a crow's nest for this purpose. The gentleman expressed his wonder why he gave himself this trouble, to which he replied, “O, Sir, it is really a shame that these creatures should do so. Only see what waste they make.” To save the expense of going to a butcher, he would

His parsimony was the chief cause of his

have a whole sheep killed, and so eat mutton to the end of the chapter. When he occasionally had his river drawn, though sometimes horse-loads of fish were taken, he would not suffer one to be thrown in again, observing that if he did, he would never see them more. Game in the last stage of putrefaction, and meat that walkcd about his plate, he would continue to eat, rather than have new things killed before the old provision was exhausted. With this diet his dress kept pace. When any friends who might happen to visit him were absent, he would carefully put out his own fire, and walk to the house of a neighbour, making one fire serve both. His shoes he never would suffer to be cleaned, lest they should be worn out the sooner. When he went to bed, he would put five guineas into a bureau, and would rise sometimes in the middle of the night, to go down stairs and see if they were safe. There was nothing but the common necessaries of life, of which he did not deny himself; and it would have admitted of a doubt whether, if he had not held in his own hands manors and grounds, which furnished him a subsistence, he would have starved rather than have bought anything. He one day dined on the remnant of a moor-hen, which had been brought out of the river by a rat; and at another, ate the undigested part of a pike, which had been swallowed by a larger one taken in this state in a net. On the latter occasion, he observed, with great satisfaction: “Ave ' this is killing two birds with one stone.” [to be concluded 1N our NExt.)

MR. MOORE'S ADDRESS.

We have been favoured by Mr. Moore with a copy of his Address before the “General Trades' Union.” We have already pronounced it an eloquent production. We will now make several brief extracts. But we cannot extract the delivery, which added immensely to the esfect. To form, therefore, a fair idea of Mr. Moore's eloquence, it is necessary to hear him. Yet, the extracts we make may be considered as fine specimens of style, and eloquent in themselves.

“The art of printing has, perhaps, contributed more essentially to the welfare of mankind, to the advancement of society, and to the promotion and diffusion of political, physical, and ethical truths, than all the arts beside. It is, in fact, an art that is “preservative of all arts.” Wherever it is known and encouraged, the progressive improvement of society is certain, and the march of mind secure and unembarrassed. But where the press has never shed its light, or dispensed its intellectual treasures, the night of ignorance and the gloom of superstition rest upon the soul, and obscure the intellect of man; and should it be struck from existence, with its rich treasures of instruction, the world ere long would be merged in night and barbarism.

The invention of the mariner's compass, or, rather, the discovery of that mystic and incomprehensible law which gives polarity to the needle, claims to be ranked, on account of its importance, next to the press. The navigator is no longer compelled to keep the coast within view in order to steer his course aright, but now seeks the middle of the ocean with confidence and security; nor does it require a period of ten years, as in the days of Ulysses and AEneas, to make a voyage from Ilium to the island of Ithaca, or to the shores of Italy. Neither does the modern navigator require a PAL, NURUs, as did the pious Trojan of old, to stand at the helm, and observe the stars of heaven. He possesses in the compass a safer guide than either Orion or Arcturus. But for the compass, those geographical limits which from the dawn of creation had concealed one half of the world from the other, had never been passed; and America, perhaps, at this moment would have been a pathless world of woods, made vocal by the serpent's hiss, the panther's scream, and the wild man's terrific yell; and, perchance, here—even on this consecrated spot, where now stands the temple of the living God— the wild fox would have made his den, or the red man his habitation